He ran out of room in his office, so he opened a museum.Fly Service CEO Gökhan Sarıgöl opened a Civil Aviation Museum in Florya, İstanbul which features close to 1,500 models and numerous historical aviation photos he has accumulated since childhood. As an initial step, it is open to visitors on weekends. As CEO and Founder of Fly Service Ltd., Turkey, Gökhan Sarıgöl’s interest in aircraft models began when he was around 10 years old. He became infatuated on aviation when he used to watch aircraft take off and land at Atatürk International Airport whenever he visited his grandparents living nearby. The foundation of his massive collection, which has become an unseparable part of his life, was laid when he bought his first camera during his youth. On one hand, he would take photos of aircraft, while on the other, he was collecting models and old photos. Since then, what began as an amateur hobby has since transformed into a full-fledged archive comprised of more than 1,500 models hundreds of priceless photos and oil paintings.

Sarıgöl has gone through great lengths to build up his collection, which is among the top five largest collections in the world. In particular, he acquired vintage cast iron airplane models at great expense of time and effort from antique shops, auctions or during his travels abroad. Within a short time, Sarıgöl became one of the best customers of antique shops and auction houses in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany, never hesitating to shell out up to five or six thousand dollars for some of his models. It reached the point when he plain ran out of space in his home and office for his massive collection of models and photos accumulated over a period of 27 years. He then came up with the idea to open a museum with the objective of housing this collection and serving aviation enthusiasts. In realizing his dream, he purchased the entire first floor located adjacent to his office for $350,000. Counting down the days when he plans to inaugurate the museum with the Minister of Communications, İsmet Yılmaz, Sarıgöl indicated that the museum is currently open to the public on Saturdays from 12:00 – 16:00. In the meanwhile, Sarıgöl and fellow aviation historian Stuart Kline are about to publish the first of a three-volume work entitled “Commercial Aviation History in Turkey.” The first volume, which covers the propeller-driven years 1910 – 1967, features foreign airline companies as well as Turkish state airlines, Vecihi Hurküş and Nuri Demirağ. While 85% of the material of this ground-breaking book has never been published before, it also exposes many previously unknown facets of Turkish civil aviation.

Sarıgöl doesn’t regret for even a moment the amount of time and money he has invested in amassing his aviation archive. “I’m going to do everything I can in my power to have young people get familiar with aviation. I get a big kick out of sharing my knowledge and accumulation with anyone who is interested.”

But this guy also collect everything arround aviation (for example he owns over 800 Captain hats from airlines all over the world). Most of all those things are now stored in many cellars here in Terminal 2 at FRA where he also run a little office.

He is an extreme nice guy, well known here at FRA but you won't love him Ontavio... he comes from Argentina

PS: It is very sad that VARIG will stop to fly to FRA at the end of March. All staff members will be fired and that's realy bad as they worked here for ages for VARIG and won't have any chance on the job market furthermore... realy sad

Martin, now I remember! You told me about this guy when I visited you there. If I am not wrong there was part of his collection on display at FRA airport somewhere. Amazing. As I live near Uruguay and Argentina I like the people from these countries. In fact the other brazilians envy them insted of hate them. They have much better wines and food etc. eh eh eh Now I think I will be killed by the brazilian members of this forum . eh eh eh I have booked a flight to Uruguay next April to celebrate my wife´s birthday and another one to Buenos Aires in may wiyh a dozen of frriends of us. The first one with GOL and the latter with VARIG.

To be honest I don´t know what is happening to VARIG since GOL bought it. Everyone in Brazil thought VARIG would return to have profits and re-stablish its int´l routes but this didn´t happen. I think GOL decided to re-start in a slowly way with VARIG insted of a very fast growing without partners to spread its pasengers in another countries. And the german routes were the cherry on top of the ice-cream to VARIG in the past. Too bad but let´s await the next chapters....I do hope the personel fires got a job with TAM or LH soon.

My sister in law flew TAM A345 to Barcelona with an stop in FRA last month. Just as a curiosity.

All the best my friend. See ya...

__________________Thank you Aeroclassics for the VARIG Coronados, CRUZEIRO A300, Transbrasil 707s and VARIG 707s !!!Thank you GeminiJets for the GOL 737-700 !Thank you JC Wings for the VARIG DC-3 !

VARIG will fire all its employees at FRA?? oh gawsh!! i thought only the Indian-IT industry was taken over by a storm with so many lay-offs, due to the dollar depriciation.... but this news is also sad!!!